News from Rivermont Collegiate

Dear Rivermont Community,

This week one of our Upper School students, sophomore Vania Sazonov has written a piece on a special guest who visited our campus.  The following is his re-telling of our visit with Holocaust survivor Agnes Schwartz.  Her visit was made possible by the Quad Cities Yom Hashoa Committee.

Rick St. Laurent

Headmaster

This past Monday Agnes Schwartz, a Holocaust survivor, came to visit Rivermont Collegiate and shared with the seventh through twelfth grade students her incredible, heart-wrenching story. She was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1933. When she was eleven years old Germany occupied her hometown. After having many of her rights taken away and being forced to wear a yellow star, her family was relocated to a Jewish designated building. She lived there with her father, mother, grandmother, grandfather, and aunt. Eventually, her mother was torn apart from her by the Nazis, never to see one another again. She was then sent by her family to live with her former housekeeper, Julia, under a new identity as Julia's Christian niece. She lived with her housekeeper in constant fear of being found out as a Jew. When the Allied Forces began their bombings, she was forced to live in the first floor of an apartment complex. There was no electricity and no sewage system, so they were forced to live with all the residents of the apartment complex by candlelight and use a bucket as a chamber pot, emptied only in the dead of night. She lived like this for three months until she was eventually liberated by the advancing Soviet Army.

Once free, she immediately wanted to know what had become of her family and wondered if she was ever going to see them again. She found out that her father was alive and had been saved by Raoul Wallenberg, hiding in one of his safe houses. The rest of her family had suffered a different fate. With the Allied Forces near and in order to save ammunition, the Nazis had drowned her grandmother, grandfather, and aunt in the Danube River. She also found out that after being deported her mother had been sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she had passed away. Her father was the only one she had left. They decided that they would move to the United States where they had some relatives living in Chicago. Agnes was very eager to move to the United States because she had been told all sorts of wonderful stories about it. After some time had passed her father had decided that he could not assimilate into the American lifestyle and decided to move back to Hungary. Because of this, Agnes felt very abandoned for most of her youth but said she was grateful to live in such an amazing country.

For Agnes there is one thing that she wanted us to take from her story, and that is that the Holocaust really did happen. She wanted us to never forget the terrible things that had occurred and to be grateful to live in a country where you are mostly free and do not have to worry about yourself or your loved ones being in constant danger. Most of all, she wanted us to never forget her story and make sure that the terrible truth about the Holocaust lives on forever so that the atrocities may never be repeated.

Vania Sazonov, Class of 2014

Rivermont Collegiate is proud to announce the winner of the 2012 Jane and Clem Werner Scholarship - senior Joann Weeks, daughter of Randy and Monica Weeks (our Middle and  Upper School Spanish teacher) The $5,000 scholarship is distributed through the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend . Joann will use the scholarship money to attend  Benedictine University, Lisle, Illinois.

"IT'S THE REAL THING!"  Coca Cola Scholarship Foundation picks one of our own as a National Scholar winner!  Pavane Gorrepati spent a few days last week in Atlanta, Georgia  interviewing as a finalist in the 2012 Coca Cola Scholarship Contest.  She is one of only 50 students selected in a national

competition and wins a renewable $20,000 scholarship. Pavane will be using the award to attend Yale University.

Congratulations to the 8th Grade RAI team of Hannah Hansen, Nathan McVey, Bailey Mangan & Alex Skillin for their 2nd Place win during Wednesday's Rivermont Academic Invitational.  They were among 152 students form 15 area schools participating in RAI this year.

Special thanks to invitational organizer Leigh Ann Schroeder!

Saturday, April 28

Sunday, April 29

2:00 p.m.

Tickets: $5.00

at the door

Produced by special arrangement with

Pioneer Drama Service, Inc.,